University vice-chancellors’ salaries in the spotlight

Academic staff and students past and present respond to stories on the salaries of vice-chancellors at Bath and Birmingham universities. Plus
Sally Hunt of the University and College Union on teachers being paid less at CU Coventry

Glynis Breakwell, who recently resigned as vice-chancellor of Bath University. She was the highest-paid vice-chancellor, on £468,000 a year.
Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

If rip-off fees guaranteed a university education of excellent quality they might be defensible. They do not. The university system is a self-serving bureaucracy whose sole aim is “bums on seats”, hence maximising financial returns and fat-cat salaries. The vice-chancellors are the most obvious targets with their grossly inflated salaries but there is a whole massive gravy train of pro-vice-chancellors, deputy-pro etc. Much of the actual work is done by poorly paid academics often on zero-hours contracts. One course I taught had 50 students in the first year, then 125 and 180 in subsequent years. The course was a nonsense with these vastly increased student numbers so I withdrew from teaching it after the first year. At another institution with which I was associated the principal spent hundreds of thousands on an unnecessary refurbishment of his suite of rooms while he was sacking “redundant” academics who were very close to retirement. All of this happened years ago but continues today. My view, based on decades of observation, is that university heads are frequently greedy, bullying incompetents with no detectable managerial skills and no commitment to the scholarship, teaching and research which are what universities are supposed to be about. Close examination of their salaries and performance is long overdue.Dr John CooksonBournemouth, Dorset

Any “leader” who loses the confidence of their staff to the point where some of them throw biscuits at a meeting room window is rather more than “out of touch”. Further, executive pay has been an issue at Bath for many years, with the governing body ignoring many requests for transparency.

Vasagar says Professor Glynis Breakwell’s success is demonstrated by the increase in research grants from £17m to £36m, and by the doubling of student numbers. Vice-chancellors do not bring in grants: staff do.

Student numbers rose because more students were admitted. In 2015, the students’ union president wrote that “students are sleeping on sofas or friends’ bedroom floors, travelling from home, living out of hostels, sharing bedrooms (of up to four persons) … or considering not to continue their studies”, after management failed to plan accommodation for increased numbers.

Vasagar believes that Professor Breakwell’s pay is a result of excellent performance. This case has never been made to the university community. Not even the governing body, I believe, sees the measures used to assess the vice-chancellor’s performance and set her pay. This lack of transparency led to the failures of governance criticised by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Staff and students have now made clear their lack of confidence in the running of Bath. This has not happened overnight.Michael CarleyPresident, University of Bath University and College Union

• The debate around the remuneration of university vice-chancellors reached a new low with Andrew Adonis’s call for the archbishop of Canterbury to look into the issue (Report, 8 December). As a contributor to the current system of university finance he should appreciate the challenges faced by universities in the current environment and the distinct and rare combination of knowledge and skills needed to lead them.

He should also realise that even the highest-paid vice-chancellor’s salary has no material effect on student fees. I’ve studied and worked under almost a dozen vice-chancellors, all outstanding scholars and leaders who have helped to create a higher education system that is the envy of the world. Universities are among the most complex organisations in existence, balancing multiple challenges that range from achieving research and teaching excellence across fields ranging from the humanities to sciences, medicine and engineering while contributing locally, nationally and globally culturally, socially and economically. The typical UK vice-chancellor has shown an ability to deal with these issues effectively. No wonder their talents are in demand globally, unlike the politicians with whom they are compared.

The debate is a convenient sham. It takes attention away from the scandal of executive remuneration in British industry where governments have talked long and done nothing. Equally, it is a useful distraction from discussion about the real issues around university finances and student debt. If, however, Lord Adonis wants a financial issue for the archbishop to examine, perhaps the £70m a year cost of the Lords or the average cost of almost £100,000 for each of their lordships would be start.Emeritus Professor Tom CannonManchester

• Regarding university vice-chancellors’ salaries, much the same thing happened when further education colleges were sort of privatised in 1992. A gravy train was constructed and rapidly exploited. Principals were told that they were running quasi-independent businesses and urged to emulate private sector practice. Not surprisingly, pay consultants were rapidly summoned and undertook benchmarking exercises that resulted in substantial pay rises for principals – what better way of guaranteeing annual consultancy fees from satisfied clients? There followed mergers and acquisitions, sales of once-public assets, dodgy deals, downward pressure on pay and conditions and insecure work contracts, all the glitz of the private sector in fact, and ever increasing rewards for the overburdened chief executives, as the principals were now called. Commerce rather than education became the order of the day. And has the student experience improved? I leave that to others to decide.Roy Boffy (Former senior adviser for further education, Dudley MBC), Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands

• It is surely very paradoxical that the UK university sector, having fully embraced the mechanisms of the market and the principles of business, seems incapable of marketing itself positively to existing and potential consumers. Few days pass without a negative story being told about it. Accounts of rip-off fees for courses, grotesquely high salaries for its leaders, and inadequate contracts of employment and poor wages for other over-worked employees are quickly becoming the norm. Indeed, some of us, who once were proud to be university employees, are beginning to wonder if they are true, given the sector’s failure so far successfully to rebut them. David HalpinKirk Deighton, North Yorkshire

• Last week you reported (6 December) that the vice-chancellor of Birmingham University has an annual salary of £426,000. A few days later I received a letter asking whether, as a former student, I might like to volunteer to help current students. This “volunteering” apparently consists of making a donation of at least £100. I don’t have £100 to spare, but I could suggest where a slightly bigger sum might be found in-house.Anne CowperBishopston, Swansea

Let’s be clear about what “no frills” actually means in this context. Coventry University College, or CU Coventry, as it’s now called, charges lower prices for its three-year degrees and claims to offer students a more flexible experience.

But if you teach at CU Coventry – a subsidiary of Coventry University – “no frills” means you get paid much less than your colleagues at the university, your teaching year is much longer, your workload heavier, and you have no access to a decent occupational pension. About 40% of the teachers are paid by the hour and this “sweating of the assets” means there is a heavy turnover of staff.

All of which helps to explain why these teachers are fighting hard for a union. Their colleagues at Coventry University can be in a number of unions that are recognised by the university. Appallingly though, the board of governors at CU Coventry decided recently to resist any approaches from unions at the college.

CU Coventry’s “no frills” model is highly profitable. In 2016 it registered post-tax profits of £3.8m which it then gift-aided to its sole shareholder, Coventry University. The CEO of CU College is the pro-vice-chancellor of Coventry University and the board includes two deputy vice-chancellors and the university secretary.

The university sector is currently beset by scandals over senior pay and perks, and it is right that a light is finally being shone on the murky world of remuneration committees. It is also time to take a proper look at the role of subsidiary companies and how they treat their staff.Sally HuntGeneral secretary, University and College Union